SayUncle has a story about a gay woman who tried to get a license with her, err — husband’s? — last name on it after getting gay married in another state. If you look on the department’s web site, it notes the documents they accept for this purpose. I suspect she presented a marriage certificate from another state for her gay wedding, which is not legally valid in the State of Tennessee. What’s kind of funny, or tragic, I’m not sure which, is that they didn’t seem to notice until after the fact, I’m guessing when a supervisor noticed two female names on the marriage certificate. I guess the lesson here is if you’re going to get gay married to someone, but move to a state that doesn’t recognize it, you should marry someone with a androgynous first name. You know, like Pat, Kris, Jamie, or Toni. Either way, the cause is not lost. You can legally change your name in most states, and with a court order to that effect in hand, the DMV will give you a license with the last name you want.
Month: June 2010
Prejudices on Parade
Joe Huffman has been posting an ongoing series for the past few weeks, reviewing his collection of gun control supporting political cartoons, which tend to bring out all the leftist stereotypes of gun owners. Go have a look, and keep following. It gives you a pretty good idea what those in the media have thought about us over the years.
What a Choice
It has to be hard sticking to your incumbent friendly endorsement policy when you have an NRA Board Member running for Governor against an really Second Amendment friendly incumbent Governor. How much do you like a race where that’s your choice? Beats voting in Pennsylvania, I can tell you that. Jan Brewer signed a constitutional carry bill into law, and the other guy is on the NRA Board. Maybe I can get used to 110 in the shade!
I Thought PLCAA Was Going to Stop This?
Gun control groups told us if we passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that the gun industry would have blanket immunity from lawsuits. If that’s the case, I don’t know how this is happening.
Mass GOP Chair Condemns New Gun Control Proposals
It’s good to see that the Republican Party in Massachusetts still hasn’t abandoned gun owners. The New Jersey GOP has for a while. I think their last chairman recognized the problem, but I’m not sure the party is moving far enough, fast enough. I don’t expect much from Governor Christie, as he has much bigger fish to fry at this point, unfortunately.
Friday Fun Fly: MiG-21 Fishbed
I was inspired by this story of an aviator who had his wings clipped by the FAA for buzzing a beach, so low it took out a few fishing rods. One of the great things about X-Plane is being able to do things that the FAA would normally frown on, such as buzzing a beach, or, I don’t know, flying supersonic under the Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston with a MiG-21 Fishbed:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wiZJNmmJ1Y[/youtube]
It took me a few tries to get it under. The nearby bridges make it difficult. But I managed to do it without crashing the plane. If you want to see a non-pixelated version, download the m4v here. This particular model is painted up in the colors of the Croation Air Force, which is still an operator of the Fishbed. The MiG-21 is one ugly plane, but it’s easy to fly for a fighter. It’ll take quite a bit of abuse, and it takes some work to push it over the envelope. In contrast, every time I try to fly the F-22 in X-Plane I push it too far and it undergoes catastrophic failure. The MiG is a lot more fun to fly. X-Plane is a really great product with a large community of people contributing to it. You can even join a virtual airline and fly regularly scheduled flights in the VATSIM world if you’re up to it. I’m still working my way up to flying in the VATSIM world with the X-Plane version of the Boeing 737. Let me tell you, we’ve come a long way from this.
And no, FTC, I’m not promoting X-Plane for any other reason than the fact that it’s a lot of fun and a great community. For those of us who are aviation enthusiasts who spend too much money on guns an ammunition to be able to afford a plane, it’s a fun, cheap hobby. Well, for most of us anyway.
Top Shot Commentary from an Archer
A few other gun blogs have already linked this commentary on the archery aspects of last Sunday’s top shot, but it’s well worth a read if you haven’t already seen it.
Steve Israel Looks to Count Juvenile Convictions
I’m very wary of this idea, mainly because the juvenile justice system has lesser due process protections than the criminal court system, such as the right to trial by jury. It was designed this way because the juvenile system is not supposed to operate in the traditional realm of crime and punishment, but as a means of rehabilitating a juvenile who had been adjudicated delinquent. At least that’s the theory. That’s why juvenile adjudications are treated differently than criminal convictions in the regular court system.
In most states the option exists to try juveniles as adults for serious, violent offenses. My preference would be that a juvenile be tried as an adult in these types of cases, which would remove his Second Amendment rights upon conviction. By applying a life-long civil rights disability to a juvenile, it defeats the point of the juvenile justice system. Presumably, much like Lautenberg, there would be an ex post facto component that would apply this retroactively, creating thousands of newly minted, and blissfully unaware felons overnight.
Passed the House
DISCLOSE is through the House. See NRA’s statement here. Hopefully it won’t have the same luck in the Senate.
First Gun Use in Glacier
Via the Outdoor Pressroom, we have the first gun incident in Glacier National Park since the practice of carrying firearms was legalized in February. Is this the first use in the lower 48? A few weeks ago a hiker shot a grizzly in Denali, up in Alaska, which previously prohibited firearms. This woman shot the ground to scare away a deer, after her pepper spray failed to reach that far. Looks like the rangers issued her a warning rather than a fine. That seems to me to be the right thing to do. I’m not generally a fan of warning shots, but she was doing the right thing carrying the spray and the gun, which is what I’d suggest for someone venturing out into one of our big National Parks.